Posted on 01/28/2017 3:32:14 AM PST by Bull Snipe
Space shuttle Challenger blew up 73 seconds after liftoff. All seven crewmen perished.
I was an engineer on the Shuttle Program for most of my career, but the real source was the guy from UT that I quoted.
A bit of my history:
After grad school I started at Northrop in Hawthorne. Got hired by Rockwell in Jan. 1983. I initially worked for Chuck Gould as a Payload Integration Engineer. This led to me supporting MIT Lincoln Labs when they flew the ground laser experiment illuminating the Shuttle from AMOS (Air Force Maui Optical Station) in 1984.
Later, I spent most of my career working under Larry Lewis in Advanced Engineering at Downey.
I worked on many SDI projects such as the venture with Los Alamos to fly a Neutral Particle Beam experiment on Shuttle. That ended when we realized that the astronauts would get a fatal dose of X-Rays if we fired the thing up!
Later, I was a Project Engineer on the Advanced Launch System and spent several years pursuing fed R&D money to supplement our IRAD funds.
I took early retirement in 2002 and have been an entrepreneur since then.
As for the bolt hole story, I was always too busy making a living to go pursue it further. However, I recently spoke to a writer who has published numerous books on the space program. Perhaps someone will take up the investigation.
Wow, very impressive. As a one-time physics major, and longtime astronomy buff, I envy you. :)
*Eighty-six was a great year for centennials. Sears (when it was still an institution). Coca-Cola. The Statue of Liberty. Sunoco (which my stepdad had just semiretired from).
ff
I do not recall the story about the EPA and the O-rings, however I DO know the story on the ET foam adhesive.
In the early 1990s, the EPA told NASA they had to switch adhesives used to stick the insulating foam on the External Tank. It seems the old adhesive relied on fluorocarbons, which everyone KNEW were destroying the ozone layer.
The new adhesive was not so good. The foam gets loaded with ice on the launch pad and then peels off hitting the Shuttle tiles when the bird hits supersonic speeds.
It was one such piece of foam that hit the wing leading edge on Columbia and broke a hole in the RCC (Reinforced Carbon-Carbon). That led to losing the second Shuttle.
I was in the meeting at JSC when we briefed them on the weakened RCC on Columbia. I still have my meeting notes in my file cabinet. I am not sure if they replaced it before the accident.
Gotta take a break now and feed the livestock!
It was one such piece of foam that hit the wing leading edge on Columbia and broke a hole in the RCC (Reinforced Carbon-Carbon). That led to losing the second Shuttle.
Are you referring to the heat shield tiles needed for the craft to survive the intense heat of reentry? Columbia exploded on reentry, didn't it?
Thanks
Ah no. The initial smoke puff was carbon black indicating the o-ring failed. It is also very clear from flight videos recovered after the fact that there was no blow out of metal, but a hot jet at the point of failure of the o-ring along the joint itself. If there had been a metal failure, it would have been found in the investigation.
Livestock fed...
No, I am talking about the insulating foam on the ET. The cryogenic liquids inside freeze atmospheric moisture on and within the foam. The adhesive is to keep it attached to the ET on ascent. The foam gets pretty heavy in spots from ice build up and that was always recognized as a risk.
The tile adhesive also may have been replaced by an inferior product, but I don’t recall the details of that story.
Columbia officially crashed because a piece of ice-laden foam peeled off the ET and hit the leading edge. The part that the public does not know about is what I mentioned about the RCC.
The leading edge of the Shuttle wing is RCC. At the point where the nose shock wave impinges on that leading edge, there are very high heating rates.
Rockwell’s Lab and Test found that the RCC was “de-densifying” at that point. The high heating rates were causing oxygen to migrate into the RCC and it outgassed CO.
The problem was most severe on Columbia because it was the oldest Shuttle and had spent the most time on the pad. The salt from the KSC environment was catalyzing the C-O reaction.
They catscanned the RCC and later found you could poke your finger through it because it had become so weak!
Like I said, I left the program before I found out if they followed our recommendations. However, in that first meeting at JSC we were told that there was no money in the budget to replace the leading edge on Columbia.
I will not dispute your point, however is it possible that they missed the ripped metal? It may have melted from the heat of the hot gases escaping?
Very similar to my experience, I was watching the launch live from my dorm room. Hard to shake what these astronauts experienced. Haunting...
It’s shocking to me that any engineer thought a seal mated to an out of round seat in a violently dynamic enviroment as a rocket would even think for a minute that it could function. I wouldn’t try this with a car cylinder head or even a fuel pump. Sounds bizarre.
Right after it happened I remember a reporterette in a news conference accused Reagan of blowing it up.
Technically what she said was, “Did you know it was going to blow up”?
I was in a training meeting for a new job. Some racist piece of human debris who worked there came in and said “seven more white people dead.”
What a scum
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No.
In all likelihood, the "black goo" was thiosulfide rubber -- the actual fuel in the solid propellant -- to which Thiokol added ammonium perchlorate as an oxidizer.
Then, they filled the rocket casings with the goo and vulcanized it in place in giant autoclaves...
The vulcanized rubber+oxidizer solid propellant looked like black, rubber shoe heel material. Thiokol engineers would demonstrate the precision of their fuel/oxidizer mix by lighting a small cube of it atop a white, glazed ceramic tile -- and showing that there was zero residue (not even discoloration) left...
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You were walking on un-vulcanized (probably raw, without oxidizer) solid rocket fuel, itself.
Kirkwood, I have given more thought to my reply.
The UT engineer said that the puff of smoke (or carbon black) was due to the joint failing which would have the same effect as the sealing O-ring failing.
YES, the investigators SHOULD have found evidence of the extra bolt holes causing the failure. The fact that they did not find such evidence does not surprise me.
I think we all start with different attitudes based on our experiences. My experience in working with NASA was that, while there were many competent and trustworthy individuals, there were many who were not competent nor trustworthy.
My experience going back to my days as a cadet in the military academy is that official accounts almost always are INCORRECT. I don’t attribute this to malice in all cases.
Occam’s Razor of Government is that if it can attributed to stupidity or incompetence, that is the most likely explanation.
In any event, I was NOT there. I am simply reporting what I heard from a trusted source. Do you think he was making it up?
Once again, I hope some journalist or investigator uses my data point to dig out the truth.
Should we trust the MSM and government? I think that issue is settled! I NEVER trust the fedgov whether pubbie or dim nor the media.
You have FReepMail...
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